This article critiques an intervention made by the Howard
Government in the Northern Aboriginal territory of Australia in
2007. The intervention followed the completion of a report entitled
“Little Children are Sacred” which was commissioned by the
government after allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children
in the territory were made public. The report recommended that
sexual abuse be deemed an issue of urgent national attention and
attributed the abuse to high poverty rates and unequal access to
resources by members in the territory. The report also found that
there were a significant number of non-Aboriginal perpetrators and
that the problem of sexual abuse in this territory was
longstanding.

The report was released against a back-drop of policy shifts
including the abolishment of Aboriginal customary law during bail
decisions and changes to the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The
Act had been regarded as a breakthrough piece of legislation that
gave Aboriginal communities rights over traditional lands. However
changes made in 2006 and 2007 made it possible for an externally
appointed Executive Director to grant 99 year leases on Aboriginal
land (renewable after 69 years). There is no requirement for the
Executive Director to consult with the traditional landowners about
the management of their land.

As a result of the commissioned report, the Howard government
declared a state of National Emergency which further strengthened
this legislation and now makes it possible for the Australian
government to take over townships on five year leases. The other
key measures included the introduction of compulsory health checks
for all Aboriginal children despite the fact that other health
concerns related to poverty such as malnutrition, rheumatic heart
disease and persistent lung infections were not being targeted as
urgent concerns.

The authors note that the nature of the action taken by the
government led to widespread speculation about whether the
government’s actions were driven by the need to address child
sexual abuse, pre-election tactics and/or the desire to control
Aboriginal land because of valuable mineral deposits. They argue
that long-standing oppression of Aboriginal peoples continues while
“evidence” is reframed, repackaged and re-presented to support
non-participatory action. The Howard government ignored existing
evidence that locally based, resourced and controlled action was
imperative to finding long-term solutions. The authors argue that
these actions are particularly important for social workers to
learn from as policies such as these have the capacity to involve
social workers in compromise and appropriation and to implicate
them in an increasingly rigid and compliance based framework of
policing social problems.